Thick film planar filter connector having separate ground plane shield

In an electrical connector for filtering a wide band of frequencies

• comprising a conductive housing enclosing a planar filter member having opposed surfaces and at least one row of conductive pins extending through the opposed surfaces;
• the filter member comprising multiple capacitors, there being a capacitor associated with each pin;
• each capacitor having at least one conductive layer forming a ground electrode in electrical contact with the housing, at least one conductive layer forming a pin electrode in electrical contact with its respective pin and dielectric material separating the electrodes, the ground electrode being common to all pins in a row and being an elongated conductive layer along one side of the row of pins;
• the improvement comprising at least one ground plane disposed over at least one surface of the filter member, the ground plane having peripheral edges in electrical contact with the housing and holes for accommodating the conductive pins without touching the pins, and the further improvement wherein the conductive layer forming the ground electrode, the conductive layer forming the pin electrode, and the dielectric material separating the electrodes are formed by screen printing alternate conductive and dielectric thick film layers on an alumina substrate.